CURSEDCLEVELAND.COM

The last time we saw Maurice Clarett – the troubled running back prodigy turned Grey Goose-chugging career criminal, a Franklin County judge was sending him off to prison for first degree aggravated robbery and various other concealed weapons charges. Nearly two and a half years later, he’s apparently in the basement of the Toledo Correctional Institution: blogging.

“I’m feeling like a champion because I am making the most of my situation.  I am not waiting to be great once I am released.  I’m doing everything I can back here in a great way.  Being great is a way of life.  I feel blessed to still be breathing and I think I can show my appreciation to the world by being the best me.  I can’t have it any other way.  I am making my way.”

Obviously there’s reason to be skeptical about about the legitimacy of this blog. Anyone can go to any number of blog hosting sites and create one for free. The prose appears to be pretty complex for someone who allegedly never went to class at Ohio State, and has far better sentence structure than you’d ever see at With Leather.  It’s often extremely reflective and full of optimism, while other times the passages are forlorn.

He says the blog is a collection of his thoughts relayed over the phone to his girlfriend. In an item two weeks ago, he says he’s enrolled back at school at Ohio University and that he wants to earn a bachelor’s in a Geriatrics and Gerontology (if this doesn’t prove that OU will accept anyone, I don’t what what will).  He’s also mentoring other prisoners on how to cope with their sentences (as long as he’s not mentoring them on how to speed up their 40 times).  There’s another entry about his diet and how he wants to get down from his present weight of 233 lbs – apparently he’s the one guy who goes to prison and still can’t get in shape.

Maurice also says he’s still getting hate letters from Andy Geiger the public. His response to one of them in particular was one one of personal triumph, but without remorse.

I just recently received one of the most humorous hate letters. It was five pages long and boy did it make me laugh. I laughed at the shallow approach to make me feel horrible. I want to clue everyone in real quick. I am mentally and spiritually above my past. I have transcended the madness. You can’t make me feel bad by telling me what I did in the past. I just want to say, “Thanks for paying attention.” Your hatred keeps me relevant. Every time you mention my name, you keep me alive.

Clarett is scheduled to receive his first parole hearing around February of 2010. He says he wants to get back to the football field. He says he still has “business ventures to persue that will secure [his] and [his family's] future.”We wish him the best of luck to that end.

I covered Clarett during his year and a half stint at OSU. I always found him to be interesting, a little out there? Yes, but not your typical athlete. While his downfall  was his own doing while at OSU, the school was not exactly blameless.  He was given special treatment from day one, and to act otherwise is revisionist history. But if these writings are genuinely his, it looks as if he’s taken ownership of his faults- something he’s had trouble with in the past.   And to this day, he still talks to Jim Tressel once a week on the phone. Hopefully he’ll turn it all around, and not add yet another chapter to this unfortunate saga.

Now if only he could start podcasting .